- Mario Strikers Charged
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Mario Strikers Charged
Mario Strikers Charged Football
North American box artDeveloper(s) Next Level Games Publisher(s) Nintendo Series Mario Strikers series Platform(s) Wii Release date(s) Genre(s) Sports game Mode(s) Single player, multiplayer, online Rating(s) Mario Strikers Charged, known in Europe and Australia as Mario Strikers Charged Football,[6] is a sports video game developed by Canadian developer Next Level Games and published by Nintendo for the Wii. This game was announced at the 2006 Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany as the sequel to Super Mario Strikers for the Nintendo GameCube. It was released on May 25, 2007 in Europe, June 7, 2007 in Australia and July 30, 2007 in North America.
The game supports the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection, through which players can participate in online matches and tournaments. Upon its European release, it became the first Wii online game to be available outside of Japan. It was also the first Mario Game Released on the Wii and the first Mario game to be given a rating higher than E by the ESRB.[citation needed]
Contents
Gameplay
Two teams of four players each play a round of association football, battling for the possession of a metallic soccer ball. The player controls the character with the ball, if his/her team has possession, or may switch between characters if it does not. At its weakest the ball is a purple color, however the ball quickens and brightens in color as it is passed around the field, eventually becoming bright white. A brighter ball has a better chance of scoring a goal when shot to the net. Opponents can attempt to hit or slide tackle the player with the ball to gain possession.
Items
When a character is hit without the ball, or when a character charges the ball to a blue ring shot, that character's team gets an item. These perform various functions, such as knocking out other players or giving a temporary boost of speed. All items from the previous game, such as the various Koopa Shells and the Chain Chomp reappear, except for Bowser, who is now a playable character. Captains may get a special, "Super Ability" item that creates a unique effect, for example Diddy Kong may use his ability to remove other players from the field or Princess Daisy may knock out all players in a large radius.
Mega Strikes and Skillshots
If a player holds the "shoot" button, a shot will charge up and if near the opposing team's goal, become a special shot. If the character is a sidekick, he or she will perform a Skillshot. Each sidekick has their own unique Skillshot, but all have the ability to either disable or bypass the goalie, making a goal much more likely.
If the character is a captain, the shot will be a Mega Strike. The Mega Strike splits up into 3-6 individual shots which all fly toward the goal at a certain speed. The number of balls and their speed depend on the player's timing in executing the Mega Strike. To defend against the shots, the opposing goalie (if a human player) will enter a minigame where the player must target and block the balls with the goalie, depending on the speed of the mega strike the player may have some time or almost no time at all to block the balls. For every shot the mega striking player successfully makes, a goal is awarded to their side.
Dekes
A deke is performed by using the D-Pad on the Wii Remote. To deke in that direction when in possession of the ball, a character will perform a specific move instead of tackling.
Characters such as Mario, Luigi or Toad will jump or roll forward a short distance. Other characters, such as Waluigi, Dry Bones and Princess Daisy can teleport, to avoid being tackled. These characters are mostly used to perform a trick shot. Others will damage their opponent. Characters like Birdo and Hammer Bros. will hit their foes, usually when another player is attempting to tackle them.
Online features
This is the second Wii game to use the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection features (with Pokémon Battle Revolution being the first). In Europe, it is the first Wii game to use the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection. The online modes feature ranked random matches and unranked friendly matches.
Ranked matches puts players up against a random opponent and are restricted to players in the same region in order to maintain connection stability. A billboard showing the player's Mii will be shown along with the "Striker of the Day". The Striker of the Day is the player who earns the most points in one day. Players earn 10 points for winning a match or 1 point for losing a match, and also 1 point per goal scored, with a limit of 10 points earned for goals making a total limit of 20 points. The ranked matches do not use friend codes, are region specific, and support 1 vs. 1 and 2 vs. 2 player matches.
Friendly matches are casual matches in which players can go up against their friends. Unlike the ranked matches, the unranked matches use the friend code system and there is no points system. While originally planned to support worldwide play, support for friend code matches was later restricted to local regions due to concerns about lag and playability.[7] Players are able to import their Mii; each Mii has its own friend code so that each user can have a separate friend list.[8] The unranked matches support 1 vs. 1, 2 vs. 1, 2 vs. 2, and 3 vs. 1 player matches.
Characters
There are a total of 12 captains and 8 sidekicks to choose from to form a five-player team, which consists of a captain, three sidekicks, and a goalie. All characters, except for the goalies, are separated into 5 categories: Balanced (balanced in all areas), Playmaker (speedy with good passing ability), Power (good shooting and defensive ability), Offensive (good shooting and passing ability), and Defensive (speedy with good defensive ability). A team may consist of any combination of different sidekicks (e.g. 2 Koopa Troopas and a Shy Guy).
Reception
Currently, reviews of the game have been generally positive with an average critic score of 80% at Game Rankings[9] and 79% at Metacritic.[10] Official Nintendo Magazine praised the pick-up and play feel of the game, giving the game 91%. Eurogamer also favored the added strategy and feel to game, giving it an 8/10.[11] UK magazine NGamer criticized the game for its low amount of game modes, but overall felt that it was a definite improvement over the Nintendo GameCube original, giving it 78%. Edge magazine was concerned about the overwhelming power of the Mega Strike feature, also citing "The eventful, minute-long matches and frantic to-and-fro make Mario Strikers a suitable curtain-raiser for online gaming on the Wii, but a balanced and deep extreme sports game this is not.", giving it 6/10. IGN UK gave the game an 8.7 out of 10 and an editor's choice award.[12] UK based website Mansized scored Mario Strikers Charged a full 5 out of 5 stars, particularly praising the game's enjoyable multiplayer options. GameSpot gave the game a score of 7.5 out 10.[13] Hyper's Rico Shavez commends the game for its "great net code and immediately fun". However, he criticises it for its "lack of options, being shallow and its lightweight single player".[14]
GameTap stated "The reason why it’s not fun at times isn’t because it doesn’t replicate the craziness--but rather that the AI becomes so incredibly cheap in the later tournaments and that there really isn’t much to the overall game aside from just beating the crap out of everyone to make way for a shot on goal", giving the game 7/10.[15]
GamingTarget gave the game 7/10,citing: "To sum things up, Mario Strikers Charged is a fun, yet brutal anti-soccer game for all ages, but unfortunately the graphics leave something to be desired".
GameTrailers gave the game 7.4/10 citing the game was the first great Wi-fi game for Wii in America.
Nintendo Power gave the US edition 8.5 out of 10, criticizing the limited single player modes while praising its online and offline multiplayer capabilities.
GamePro gave Mario Strikers Charged 5 out of 5, praising the great online support, lots of game modes, and its fun battles.[16]
As of March 31, 2008, 1.77 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide, with 240,000 being sold in Japan.[17]
See also
References
- ^ "Get ready for kick off!". Nintendo of Europe. 2007-03-04. http://www.nintendo-europe.com/NOE/en/GB/news/article.do?elementId=eFA8gFwMd9RQtGKMyr4DW6LGuRPeF8Ms. Retrieved 2007-05-22.
- ^ "Mario Strikers Charged Football". Nintendo of Australia. 2007-05-03. Archived from the original on June 23, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070623232827/http://games.nintendo.com.au/title.php?id=1190. Retrieved 2007-05-22.
- ^ "NOA Release Dates Galore". Nintendo World Report. 2007-05-21. http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=13483. Retrieved 2007-05-22.
- ^ gonintendo.com
- ^ "Mario Strikers Charged Japanese boxart". Go Nintendo (blog archive). 2007-08-10. http://gonintendo.com/?p=22744. Retrieved 2007-08-31.
- ^ "Get ready for kick off!". Nintendo of Europe. http://www.nintendo-europe.com/NOE/en/GB/news/article.do?elementId=eFA8gFwMd9RQtGKMyr4DW6LGuRPeF8Ms. Retrieved 2007-05-22.
- ^ "Mario Strikers Wi-Fi & Gameplay Video". Cubed3. 2007-04-23. http://www.cubed3.com/news/7364.
- ^ "New Mario Strikers Charged Info". 4 Color Rebellion. 2007-04-23. http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2007/04/23/new-mario-strikers-charged-info/. Retrieved 2007-05-22.
- ^ Mario Strikers Charged at Game Rankings
- ^ Mario Strikers Charged at Metacritic
- ^ "Mario Strikers: Charged Football review". Eurogamer. 2007-05-18. http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=76508. Retrieved 2007-05-22.
- ^ Matt Wales. "Mario Strikers Charged Football UK Review". IGN. http://uk.wii.ign.com/articles/790/790253p3.html. Retrieved 2007-05-30.
- ^ Alex Navarro. "Mario Strikers Charged Football GameSpot Review". GameSpot. http://www.gamespot.com/wii/sports/mariostrikerscharged/review.html?sid=6175854&tag=topslot;title;4&om_act=convert&om_clk=topslot. Retrieved 2007-08-01.
- ^ Shavez, Rico (August 2007). "Mario Strikers: Charged Football". Hyper (Next Media) (166): 64. ISSN 1320-7458.
- ^ "GameTap Profile at Metacritic.com". http://www.metacritic.com/publication/gametap?filter=games&page=4. Retrieved January 27, 2010. The original GameTap review is no longer available.
- ^ LongHairedOffender (2007-07-30). "Mario Strikers Charged review". GamePro. http://gamepro.com/nintendo/wii/37236/info.shtml. Retrieved 2008-01-11.
- ^ "Financial Results Briefing for the Fiscal Year Ended March 2008: Supplementary Information" (PDF). Nintendo. 2008-04-25. p. 6. http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2008/080425e.pdf#page=6. Retrieved 2008-08-03.
External links
- Mario Strikers Charged Football at Official European Site
- Mario Strikers Charged page at www.nintendo.com
- Mario Strikers Charged at Wii.com
- Mario Strikers Charged at Metacritic
- Mario Strikers Charged at GameSpot
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Book:Mario titlesCategories:- 2007 video games
- Association football video games
- Mario sports games
- Mario Universe games
- Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection games
- Video games developed in Canada
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